“It was the sort of obnoxious thing I would say back then to piss people off”: Nick Cave speaks out on famous diss of the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Nick Cave has shared his regret over a famous comment he made in 2004, in which he criticised the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
At the time, Cave had said in an interview: “I’m forever near a stereo saying, what the fuck is this garbage? And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers.”
READ MORE: The Genius Of… Murder Ballads by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
The band’s bassist Flea then addressed the comment, stating that although it hurt his feelings, he still loved Cave’s music. It seems both parties are willing to let bygones be bygones however, as Cave now looks back on his comment as an “uncharitable remark”. Further to that, both himself and Flea have even made a song together, which has turned out to be quite the “reconciliation and apology”.
Responding to a fan message on his Red Hand Files website, Cave states, “There was no malice intended, it was just the sort of obnoxious thing I would say back then to piss people off. I was a troublemaker, a shit-stirrer, feeling most at ease in the role of a societal irritant.”
He goes on to add, “The most interesting aspect of all this is not what I said about the Chili Peppers, but rather the response from Flea, their bass player. On Facebook, Flea expressed how hurt he felt by my remark, but went on to say, in great detail, that he loved my music regardless.
“He wrote a profoundly generous and open-hearted love letter to Nick Cave. I remember being genuinely moved by his words and thinking what a classy guy Flea was, and feeling on some subterranean level that I was unable to fully grasp at that point in my life, that Flea was a human being of an entirely different calibre, indeed, of a higher order.”
Cave says that over the years, he would run into Flea at music festivals, and though they didn’t become close friends, their encounters were always pleasant, and “there was a presence to Flea that felt genuine and oddly affecting”.
He continues, “Last week, Flea sent me a song and asked if I’d like to add some vocals. It was for a ‘trumpet record’ that he is making. It is not for me to divulge what the song was, only that it is a song I cherish more than most, with arguably the greatest lyric ever written, a song of such esteem that I would never have dared to sing it had Flea not asked me to.
“I went into the studio on Wednesday and recorded my vocals. The track emerged as a beautiful conversation between Flea’s trumpet and my voice, filled with yearning and love, the song transcending its individual parts and becoming a slowly evolving cosmic dance, in the form of a reconciliation and an apology.”
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds are touring this April. He will later kick off a solo tour in June.
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